Hewitt, Australia’s most successful singles player in Davis Cup history, said he was encouraged by the Australian Open performances of several players - including Tomic.

The comment came after 286th-ranked Tomic took world No. 14 Marin Cilic to five gruelling sets in the tournament.

“He’s obviously around the mark. I didn’t see any of the match. It’s hard to explain. Cilic is, yeah, a very good player. I think a little bit when he’s expected to win he doesn’t quite play as well,” The Telegraph quoted Hewitt, as saying.

Hewitt had earlier inflamed a simmering row with Tomic camp at the start of summer, when he said that no player ranked near 300 should think he deserved Australian selection.

The 29-year-old explained his position by saying that when he was a similar age and world ranked in the 20s, he had little hope of being picked behind Pat Rafter, Mark Philippoussis, Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde.

“The comment I always said was, ‘Yeah, anyone ranked 300 in the world can’t - doesn’t matter if it’s [Brydan] Klein or [Marinko] Matosevic or whoever it is - they can’t expect to be playing Davis Cup. It’s not going to be their call. It’s going to be [captain John Fitzgerald] Fitzy and [Todd] Woodbridge’s call and the selectors as to who they put in,” Hewitt said.

“You have no right to say that you’ll be playing Davis Cup in that situation. Personally, I feel it was a pretty good tournament for the Australians. In terms of Davis Cup, I’m a little happier with the players coming through,” he added. (ANI)